A 'QUALITY of life' survey among residents in Spain's biggest cities shows attitudes have changed since the start of the pandemic, according to national consumer organisation OCU, which conducted the...
Spanish cities with the best (and worst) quality of life
10/08/2023
PROPERTY prices, housing quality, healthcare and education, living costs and the job market are among the factors that determine where the happiest locations in Spain are, according to research by a leading national consumer organisation.
Ease of getting around – parking, public transport, cyclist and pedestrian safety – clean air, and feeling safe out in the streets are also crucial, and the OCU ranked these in its 2022 report on where the nicest places to live in Spain can be found.
As yet, no updated study has been carried out for 2023, but little is likely to have changed in terms of living conditions in general in the areas researched since the report was published.
This said, as the investigation takes time, the data for the 2022 report were taken from surveys conducted towards the end of 2020. As a result, responses would still have been affected by the pandemic.
It is likely the Covid-19 situation at the time would have led to lower scores for job opportunities, entertainment and leisure, public safety, and healthcare facilities, but may have contributed to higher rankings for air quality, cleanliness and mobility – due to lighter traffic resulting from movement restrictions and not everyone's having returned to work, and more time spent indoors.
Whilst the OCU focused on Spain's 15 largest towns and cities – not delving into smaller villages or towns in their wider provinces – the great way of life in these urban hubs is a good indication of what you might find just a few kilometres outside them.
And although you might have expected the best quality of life to be found in more southerly, coastal parts, it turns out that living in Spain is easiest and most comfortable in some of its northern inland metropolitan areas.
A stratified sample of 3,000 residents were asked to score the 'liveability' index factors out of 100, giving a total percentage of quality of life. The average for Spain's main cities – which range in population from about three million down to fewer than 300,000 inhabitants – was 64%.
'Nowhere is perfect for everyone'
“Different cities, inhabited by very diverse people with very different priorities – and priorities that are often conditioned by age, family situation, and so on – means there's no such thing as 'the perfect place to live' for everyone,” cautions the OCU.
“Not even the cities given the best scores are, in fact, the best in all areas; nor did those which ranked the 'worst' score badly in all criteria.
“And we're not all influenced by the same criteria. We asked respondents to tell us which factors on the index most affected their quality of life, and it is these that contributed the most to the overall score.
“For the average person in Spain, the most determining aspects are living costs, public safety and crime, mobility, environment and pollution, and health services – more so than other variables like arts and entertainment, schools, or even cleanliness of their town.”
Property market
Starting with the quality of homes available for sale and rent, and their prices – where you get the most for your money – Madrid and Barcelona ranked among the lowest, given that inner-city property is highly sought-after, meaning it tends to be much more expensive.
Zaragoza, Spain's fifth-largest city in the land-locked north-eastern region of Aragón, ranked top for its wide variety of homes, affordability and ease of finding a suitable house or flat to live in, either as a buyer or a tenant.
Second was Valladolid, in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, just north of Madrid, whilst Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain and home to around 800,000 residents, also came third for quality and price of residential property.
Valencia is the highest-ranked coastal city for its housing market – others with at least one beach out of the 15 surveyed are Alicante, Vigo, Málaga, Gijón, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca. Murcia was on the list and, although this south-eastern city does not have a coast, the single-province region does, and the nearest beaches are 30 kilometres away in San Pedro del Pinatar and San Javier.
After Valencia, the inland Andalucía city of Córdoba ranked fourth for its property market. Perhaps not an obvious choice for those seeking a beach home, the province of the same name, of which Córdoba is the capital, does in fact have this covered: Despite being hundreds of kilometres from the sea, the town of Almodóvar del Río boasts a blue-flagged beach, purpose-built on the shores of a freshwater lake.
Spain's top five cities for greatest quality of life
Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra in the far north-western region of Galicia, has 45 beaches along its coast and is among the smallest of the 15 cities studied in terms of inhabitant numbers, with fewer than 300,000. And it ranks top in the OCU's research, scoring 70%.
Here, those interviewed gave the thumbs-up for safety and security, cleanliness – including air quality and the environment in general – and schools, plus an above-average grade for culture, leisure and entertainment. Overall, respondents considered Vigo to be one of the best cities for families with children.
Its weak points, which may prove a downside for those same families, were the job market and property market, although Vigo was joint top for cost of living.
Zaragoza was close behind Vigo with 69%, gaining very positive feedback for all aspects mentioned, except that those interviewed believed its streets could be much cleaner.
In joint second place, along with Zaragoza, was the Basque port city of Bilbao, which earned the best score for healthcare facilities at 72% - Zaragoza and Córdoba came next, at 69% and 62% - and there's plenty to do for residents in Bilbao, too. For leisure, sports and entertainment, the capital of the province of Vizcaya came out top, beating Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona, in that order.
Schools were ranked the best of all in Bilbao, followed by Vigo and Zaragoza, and Bilbao and Vigo scored highest for cleanliness.
Air pollution – or absence of it – earned Vigo the best score, followed by Zaragoza, then Bilbao, although Madrid and Barcelona fared worst in this category.
Mobility – traffic volume, availability of parking spaces, cost and convenience of public transport, or the ease of other forms of getting about, such as cycling – was found to be best in Bilbao, followed by Zaragoza.
Bilbao's biggest drawbacks, according to the survey, were its cost of living and availability of good-quality, affordable homes.
Valladolid and Córdoba were joint fourth with 68%, with the first of these scoring best for cost of living along with Vigo.
Also, Valladolid scored third-highest for the job market, with Zaragoza second and Madrid top – although even the best-ranked cities for employment opportunities failed to make the cut. According to the OCU, even though Madrid was in first place, it still scored under 30%.
To this end, the conclusion reached through the research is that quality of life in Spain is generally high, but only if you either work remotely, own and run a successful business, or do not need to work.
Cities in the middle
Five of the six cities that fell in the middle of the ranking are on the coast, and all bar one of them are in the southern half of Spain.
Málaga is the highest-scoring coastal city, with 66%, and although it did not receive any noticeably positive or glaringly negative reviews, its healthcare was near the bottom of the table. But respondents reported that mobility had improved considerably in the Costa del Sol's largest municipality.
Valencia – with 65% - was level-pegging with Gijón as the second-highest ranking coastal cities; the latter, in the northern region of Asturias, also came second from top for public safety and security.
In the same east-coast region as Valencia, and capital of the next province to the south, Alicante was given 64% overall. The Costa Blanca city met with sufficient approval in most aspects to earn it a score well above the halfway mark, but it lost points for the quality of its schools, and for its streets not being clean enough.
Sevilla, the fourth-largest city in Spain, land-locked and replete with tourist attractions, was head to head with the Canary Islands' biggest municipality, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Both earned 63% overall, but Sevilla was near the bottom for criteria such as healthcare and public safety. This means, though, that other features of this beautiful southern-Spanish city would have been ranked very favourably, in order to give it an average figure of 63 out of 100.
Likewise, Las Palmas earned one of the poorest scores for cost of living, but none of its other grades was noticeably very low, meaning several factors listed would have been given a ranking well above the 64-point average.
Bottom four
None of the 15 towns and cities researched came away with exceptionally low scores; the one with the poorest ranking was Madrid, but even then, it achieved 55% in total. Barcelona was second from bottom, with 56%.
Murcia scored 61%, putting it below the average ranking and 12th out of 15, although the only significant negative highlighted was mobility. Along with Palma de Mallorca, Murcia ranked lowest for factors such as parking, traffic, and public transport.
Palma de Mallorca earned 57%, ending up third from the bottom, ranking lowest on education – schools, colleges and universities – along with Alicante, and also on cost of living; public safety and security was described as having 'worsened since the start of the pandemic', although as most of Spain was still facing restrictions at the time of the survey, this situation may have changed for the better.
Barcelona scored low on safety, air quality and environment, price of property, and cost of living, but did well on entertainment, leisure and sports, coming fourth.
Madrid's lowest scores also related to living costs and property prices, environment, healthcare, education, and cleanliness. However, it came out top for job opportunities – even though all 15 attracted low scores in this area – and second for leisure, sports and entertainment, ahead of Zaragoza and below Bilbao. Overall, nearly seven in 10 respondents were very satisfied with the choice of activities available to fill their free time in Spain's capital.
Despite low scores for public safety and security giving a grim impression of Barcelona, Sevilla and Palma de Mallorca, in reality, violent crime in Spain is statistically very low, making it one of the safest countries in Europe. Main concerns about security in these three very touristy cities relate to pickpockets in crowds or on trains, or similar opportunist-type thefts; it is, in fact, very common for residents in Spain to walk home alone at night, even women, and even in cities.
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PROPERTY prices, housing quality, healthcare and education, living costs and the job market are among the factors that determine where the happiest locations in Spain are, according to research by a leading national consumer organisation.
Ease of getting around – parking, public transport, cyclist and pedestrian safety – clean air, and feeling safe out in the streets are also crucial, and the OCU ranked these in its 2022 report on where the nicest places to live in Spain can be found.
As yet, no updated study has been carried out for 2023, but little is likely to have changed in terms of living conditions in general in the areas researched since the report was published.
This said, as the investigation takes time, the data for the 2022 report were taken from surveys conducted towards the end of 2020. As a result, responses would still have been affected by the pandemic.
It is likely the Covid-19 situation at the time would have led to lower scores for job opportunities, entertainment and leisure, public safety, and healthcare facilities, but may have contributed to higher rankings for air quality, cleanliness and mobility – due to lighter traffic resulting from movement restrictions and not everyone's having returned to work, and more time spent indoors.
Whilst the OCU focused on Spain's 15 largest towns and cities – not delving into smaller villages or towns in their wider provinces – the great way of life in these urban hubs is a good indication of what you might find just a few kilometres outside them.
And although you might have expected the best quality of life to be found in more southerly, coastal parts, it turns out that living in Spain is easiest and most comfortable in some of its northern inland metropolitan areas.
A stratified sample of 3,000 residents were asked to score the 'liveability' index factors out of 100, giving a total percentage of quality of life. The average for Spain's main cities – which range in population from about three million down to fewer than 300,000 inhabitants – was 64%.
'Nowhere is perfect for everyone'
“Different cities, inhabited by very diverse people with very different priorities – and priorities that are often conditioned by age, family situation, and so on – means there's no such thing as 'the perfect place to live' for everyone,” cautions the OCU.
“Not even the cities given the best scores are, in fact, the best in all areas; nor did those which ranked the 'worst' score badly in all criteria.
“And we're not all influenced by the same criteria. We asked respondents to tell us which factors on the index most affected their quality of life, and it is these that contributed the most to the overall score.
“For the average person in Spain, the most determining aspects are living costs, public safety and crime, mobility, environment and pollution, and health services – more so than other variables like arts and entertainment, schools, or even cleanliness of their town.”
Property market
Starting with the quality of homes available for sale and rent, and their prices – where you get the most for your money – Madrid and Barcelona ranked among the lowest, given that inner-city property is highly sought-after, meaning it tends to be much more expensive.
Zaragoza, Spain's fifth-largest city in the land-locked north-eastern region of Aragón, ranked top for its wide variety of homes, affordability and ease of finding a suitable house or flat to live in, either as a buyer or a tenant.
Second was Valladolid, in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, just north of Madrid, whilst Valencia, the third-largest city in Spain and home to around 800,000 residents, also came third for quality and price of residential property.
Valencia is the highest-ranked coastal city for its housing market – others with at least one beach out of the 15 surveyed are Alicante, Vigo, Málaga, Gijón, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca. Murcia was on the list and, although this south-eastern city does not have a coast, the single-province region does, and the nearest beaches are 30 kilometres away in San Pedro del Pinatar and San Javier.
After Valencia, the inland Andalucía city of Córdoba ranked fourth for its property market. Perhaps not an obvious choice for those seeking a beach home, the province of the same name, of which Córdoba is the capital, does in fact have this covered: Despite being hundreds of kilometres from the sea, the town of Almodóvar del Río boasts a blue-flagged beach, purpose-built on the shores of a freshwater lake.
Spain's top five cities for greatest quality of life
Vigo, in the province of Pontevedra in the far north-western region of Galicia, has 45 beaches along its coast and is among the smallest of the 15 cities studied in terms of inhabitant numbers, with fewer than 300,000. And it ranks top in the OCU's research, scoring 70%.
Here, those interviewed gave the thumbs-up for safety and security, cleanliness – including air quality and the environment in general – and schools, plus an above-average grade for culture, leisure and entertainment. Overall, respondents considered Vigo to be one of the best cities for families with children.
Its weak points, which may prove a downside for those same families, were the job market and property market, although Vigo was joint top for cost of living.
Zaragoza was close behind Vigo with 69%, gaining very positive feedback for all aspects mentioned, except that those interviewed believed its streets could be much cleaner.
In joint second place, along with Zaragoza, was the Basque port city of Bilbao, which earned the best score for healthcare facilities at 72% - Zaragoza and Córdoba came next, at 69% and 62% - and there's plenty to do for residents in Bilbao, too. For leisure, sports and entertainment, the capital of the province of Vizcaya came out top, beating Madrid, Zaragoza and Barcelona, in that order.
Schools were ranked the best of all in Bilbao, followed by Vigo and Zaragoza, and Bilbao and Vigo scored highest for cleanliness.
Air pollution – or absence of it – earned Vigo the best score, followed by Zaragoza, then Bilbao, although Madrid and Barcelona fared worst in this category.
Mobility – traffic volume, availability of parking spaces, cost and convenience of public transport, or the ease of other forms of getting about, such as cycling – was found to be best in Bilbao, followed by Zaragoza.
Bilbao's biggest drawbacks, according to the survey, were its cost of living and availability of good-quality, affordable homes.
Valladolid and Córdoba were joint fourth with 68%, with the first of these scoring best for cost of living along with Vigo.
Also, Valladolid scored third-highest for the job market, with Zaragoza second and Madrid top – although even the best-ranked cities for employment opportunities failed to make the cut. According to the OCU, even though Madrid was in first place, it still scored under 30%.
To this end, the conclusion reached through the research is that quality of life in Spain is generally high, but only if you either work remotely, own and run a successful business, or do not need to work.
Cities in the middle
Five of the six cities that fell in the middle of the ranking are on the coast, and all bar one of them are in the southern half of Spain.
Málaga is the highest-scoring coastal city, with 66%, and although it did not receive any noticeably positive or glaringly negative reviews, its healthcare was near the bottom of the table. But respondents reported that mobility had improved considerably in the Costa del Sol's largest municipality.
Valencia – with 65% - was level-pegging with Gijón as the second-highest ranking coastal cities; the latter, in the northern region of Asturias, also came second from top for public safety and security.
In the same east-coast region as Valencia, and capital of the next province to the south, Alicante was given 64% overall. The Costa Blanca city met with sufficient approval in most aspects to earn it a score well above the halfway mark, but it lost points for the quality of its schools, and for its streets not being clean enough.
Sevilla, the fourth-largest city in Spain, land-locked and replete with tourist attractions, was head to head with the Canary Islands' biggest municipality, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Both earned 63% overall, but Sevilla was near the bottom for criteria such as healthcare and public safety. This means, though, that other features of this beautiful southern-Spanish city would have been ranked very favourably, in order to give it an average figure of 63 out of 100.
Likewise, Las Palmas earned one of the poorest scores for cost of living, but none of its other grades was noticeably very low, meaning several factors listed would have been given a ranking well above the 64-point average.
Bottom four
None of the 15 towns and cities researched came away with exceptionally low scores; the one with the poorest ranking was Madrid, but even then, it achieved 55% in total. Barcelona was second from bottom, with 56%.
Murcia scored 61%, putting it below the average ranking and 12th out of 15, although the only significant negative highlighted was mobility. Along with Palma de Mallorca, Murcia ranked lowest for factors such as parking, traffic, and public transport.
Palma de Mallorca earned 57%, ending up third from the bottom, ranking lowest on education – schools, colleges and universities – along with Alicante, and also on cost of living; public safety and security was described as having 'worsened since the start of the pandemic', although as most of Spain was still facing restrictions at the time of the survey, this situation may have changed for the better.
Barcelona scored low on safety, air quality and environment, price of property, and cost of living, but did well on entertainment, leisure and sports, coming fourth.
Madrid's lowest scores also related to living costs and property prices, environment, healthcare, education, and cleanliness. However, it came out top for job opportunities – even though all 15 attracted low scores in this area – and second for leisure, sports and entertainment, ahead of Zaragoza and below Bilbao. Overall, nearly seven in 10 respondents were very satisfied with the choice of activities available to fill their free time in Spain's capital.
Despite low scores for public safety and security giving a grim impression of Barcelona, Sevilla and Palma de Mallorca, in reality, violent crime in Spain is statistically very low, making it one of the safest countries in Europe. Main concerns about security in these three very touristy cities relate to pickpockets in crowds or on trains, or similar opportunist-type thefts; it is, in fact, very common for residents in Spain to walk home alone at night, even women, and even in cities.
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You may also be interested in ...
- Property for sale in Vigo
- Property for rent in Vigo
- Businesses & Services in Vigo
- Property for sale in Zaragoza
- Businesses & Services in Zaragoza
- Property for sale in Valladolid
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- Property for sale in Bilbao
- Property for rent in Bilbao
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- Property for sale in Valencia
- Property for rent in Valencia
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- Property for sale in Palma de Mallorca
- Property for rent in Palma de Mallorca
- Businesses & Services in Palma de Mallorca
- Property for sale in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
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- Property for sale in Murcia
- Property for rent in Murcia
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- Property for sale in Seville
- Property for rent in Seville
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- Property for sale in Alicante / Alacant
- Property for rent in Alicante / Alacant
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- Property for sale in Córdoba
- Property for rent in Córdoba
- Businesses & Services in Córdoba
- Property for sale in Málaga
- Property for rent in Málaga
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- Property for sale in Barcelona
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- Property for sale in Madrid
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